HKSAR v. Wan Hoi Ming

HCCC 75/2015

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 75 OF 2015

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT: The defendant, Wan Hoi-ming, was charged with one count of manslaughter, contrary to common law and punishable under section 7 of the Offences Against the Person Ordinance, Cap 212. He pleaded guilty before me and I convicted him of manslaughter after he admitted to the summary of facts read out to him and after I was satisfied that the summary of facts supported the plea of manslaughter tendered.

The summary of facts

At the time of the offence, the defendant was living with his wife, their young son and the deceased who was his mother‑in‑law, and a domestic helper in a flat in Mei Foo Sun Chuen. On 4 April 2014, the defendant telephoned the police and informed them that he had suffocated his mother‑in-law to death at home. Ambulance men were despatched to the address given by the defendant. The defendant met the ambulance men and told them that he had suffocated his mother-in-law. The deceased was found lying supine on the floor. The defendant again said that he had suffocated her.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was given but the deceased had no heartbeat. The deceased was taken to Princess Margaret Hospital. Upon admission, the deceased had no spontaneous breathing or peripheral pulses. No heartbeat was detected either. After active resuscitation, the deceased’s circulation was restored with the support of a mechanical ventilator. The deceased was observed to have erythema over her face and neck and abrasion at the tip of her nose, bruising over her right knee and an abrasion on her left knee. Swelling and bruising were also noted on the knuckle of her right hand. The smell of thinner was noted. The deceased was transferred to the ICU as she was noted to have the following:

- chemical burns over her face;

- severe metabolic acidosis;

- liver failure; and

- acute lung injury

The deceased required a high level of ventilator and inotropic support and she remained comatose while in the ICU.

On 7 April she was found to have features consistent with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage with diffuse cerebral oedema. An ECG indicated the poor neurological prognosis. The deceased was certified dead on 8 April 2014.

Back at the scene, on 4 April 2014 police officers arrived there shortly after the ambulance men. The defendant told PC7022 the following:

(a) That the deceased was in a coma after being suffocated by him with a towel at home.

(b) At about 1400 hours that day, he had asked the deceased for a loan for a mortgage on the flat and there had been a quarrel between them.

(c) During the quarrel he told the domestic helper to leave the flat to perform some duties.

(d) The quarrel continued and he went to the balcony from his bedroom six to seven times, and each time he picked up a bottle of thinner and splashed the thinner onto a towel.

(e) He finally took the thinner-splashed towel into the living room and placed it on a desk. He continued to quarrel with the deceased.

(f) At about 1440 hours, when the deceased sat in front of a computer desk with her back to the defendant, the defendant picked up the towel, grabbed her neck from behind, and pressed the towel onto the deceased’s nose and mouth for about five minutes until she lost consciousness and fell to the floor. The defendant was petrified at that point and he called the police.

The defendant was arrested and cautioned by PC7022. Under caution the defendant said, “On impulse, I thought of making my mother-in-law faint by suffocating her with a thinner‑splashed towel.”

The defendant took part in a video-recorded interview later the same day. He said the following in the interview:

(a) Prior to the incident, he owed a total of around $18 million and he was receiving a lot of phone calls pressing him to make repayment. He had been borrowing money to pay old debts. He had lost money gambling on horseracing and football.

(b) He had attempted to commit suicide on 31 March 2014 and had subsequently bought a bottle of thinner on 3 April with the intention of using it in another suicide attempt. He did not do it at the end as he thought it was irresponsible to do so as his wife and son would be still pursued to repay his debts.

(c) On 4 April at around 1400 hours, he received phone calls and was pressed by someone to repay the debt. The defendant felt under a lot of pressure and he asked the deceased for a loan.

(d) He asked the deceased to lend him $1 million but she firmly refused. He told the domestic helper to leave the flat to give him time to think about whether to knock the deceased out to see if there were valuable items in the flat which he could use to make repayment.

(e) The domestic helper left the flat. The defendant became confused and afraid that people would come to the flat to look for his mother-in-law, his son and his wife.

(f) After thinking for about six to seven minutes, he went and knocked the deceased out by grabbing her arm from behind and covering her nose and mouth with the towel splashed with thinner. The deceased pushed him away and both fell to the floor. The defendant continued to cover the deceased’s mouth and nose with the towel. The deceased continued to struggle and then became motionless. The incident lasted about five minutes.

(g) The defendant entered the deceased’s room to look for valuable items but found nothing. He then saw that the deceased was unconscious and he called the police.

(h) The defendant said he had never wanted his mother-in-law to die and he did not mean her to suffer. He had not meant to kill her and had thought the thinner would give her a feeling of being high and then lose conscious quickly. He only intended to knock her out to take money to repay his debts.

A glass bottle and a towel were recovered from the flat. Both were found to contain traces of an organic mixture containing toluene. Toluene is a highly inflammable organic solvent commonly found in paint thinner mixtures.

An autopsy was performed on the deceased by a forensic pathologist on 11 April. In a nutshell, well demarcated areas of erythema and excoriation of skin with small abrasions are compatible with being in contact with chemical irritants including solvents. The erythema and the excoriation of skin involved the nose and mouth. From the history provided by the police, a towel could have blocked the nose and mouth for some minutes causing cardiac arrest, hypoxic brain damage and/or aspiration of vomit due to smothering.

The cause of death would appear to be hypoxic brain damage and aspiration pneumonia and these could have been caused by inhalation of the organic solvent, smothering due to the blockage of external respiratory orifices or a combination of both.

Background and mitigation

The defendant is 39 years of age. He has no previous criminal record in Hong Kong.

Mr Arthur Luk, SC, counsel for the defendant submitted to this court on the last occasion that the defendant bought the thinner as he thought of killing himself. Mr Luk informed me, as instructed by the defendant, that at the time in question his wife was being held hostage by one particular loan shark. This loan shark threatened the defendant that if he did not repay the money he should prepare to collect his wife’s corpse.

The defendant was worried and he asked his mother-in-law for a loan. As the mother-in-law refused, he then decided to rob her by first rendering her unconscious. This episode was never mentioned to the police as the loan shark knew the particulars of their young son’s schooling.

A hearing was held today to determine, on the balance of probabilities, whether this assertion is true. At the conclusion of the hearing, I accepted that such an assertion by the defence to be true and I gave my reasons for doing so and I will not repeat them here.

Prior to the hearing today, I received a total of 18 letters for the purpose of mitigation. Apart from the defendant and his wife, the defendant’s parents, his siblings, his sister-in-law, uncles and aunts, nieces, cousins, all wrote to me.

I do not intend to reiterate the contents of these letters. I will just mention the general picture. The defendant expressed deep regret in causing the death of his mother-in-law and, as a result, causing pain to his wife and family. He found it impossible to forgive himself for what he had done. Nevertheless, he asked for a chance to rehabilitate so that he could take care of his wife, his son and his family.

The defendant’s wife wrote a long and passionate letter to me. She detailed how wonderful the relationship between the defendant and his own parents and siblings was and between the defendant and her own parents. She described her courtship with the defendant, their marriage and the birth of their son and how the defendant tried his best to provide the best for her and their child. She knew her husband well and never doubted him as he was a kind and loving man. She described the hardship she faced since this tragedy. She asked the court to give the defendant a chance and pass a lighter sentence.

The defendant’s parents, siblings and other relatives gave me examples of what a filial son, a caring brother, a loving husband and doting father the defendant was. They all expressed their shock in learning about what the defendant had done and asked for leniency on his behalf.

I was also shown correspondence between the defendant and his son after his incarceration. I do not wish to mention the contents, suffice it to say the letters showed the deep love and affection they have for each other. I was also shown some photographs of the defendant’s family prior to his incarceration. Those photos showed the defendant enjoyed family life with his family.

Prior to today, I called for a psychologist report on the defendant. The clinical psychologist, Miss Im, was of the view that the defendant is a rigid person who overly valued financial capability and achievement in establishing his self-worth. He persistently attempted to present himself as a tough and capable person, despite the fact that he owed people a huge sum of money. He was unable to cope with the stress and he had poor problem‑solving skills. His risk of reoffending is low. Counselling is recommended but declined by the defendant.

I also called for a psychiatric report on the defendant, suffice it to say that the defendant is not diagnosed to be suffering from any form of psychiatric illness. Mr Luk, SC, submitted that the clinical psychologist aptly described why the defendant had committed the present offence. As to the reason for such an accumulation of debts, it was partly due to the failure of the defendant’s business and the defendant’s reluctance to accept failure, partly due to the need to borrow more money to cover the existing debts and partly due to the defendant resorting to gambling as a means for escape.

Mr Luk, SC, suggested to me to consider a starting point in the region of 4 to 5 years in the circumstances of this case.

The sentence

Any person who is convicted of manslaughter shall be liable to imprisonment for life and to pay such fine as the court may award.

No one would dispute that a conviction of manslaughter is very serious. Normally speaking, a person convicted of manslaughter would be looking at a long term of imprisonment if not a life sentence. But that does not mean that a person convicted of manslaughter must be locked away for many years. The sentencing judge must consider all the circumstances of any particular case to decide the appropriate sentence.

On the information before me, the defendant clearly acted totally out of character in this incident. It was the huge debts he owed and being hard pressed by debt collectors, particularly when he believed that the loan shark “Y” would harm his wife and son, should he fail to make repayment on that fateful date, then he stupidly adopted the scheme of rendering his mother-in-law unconscious so as to get her valuables to stave off the debt collector, and causing the death of his mother-in-law as a result.

I accept the assessment made by the clinical psychologist on the defendant, and that the risk of him reoffending is low. I also accept that the defendant is truly remorseful. Nevertheless, I cannot ignore the fact that the defendant took away the life of his mother-in-law and that, to a certain extent, he had himself to blame for accumulating such a huge debt.

Having considered all the circumstances of the commission of the present offence, I am of the view that a starting point of 4½ years is appropriate. There were no aggravating circumstances to enhance this starting point. The defendant pleaded guilty before me and I will give him the usual one-third discount for his plea.

For the offence of manslaughter, the defendant is therefore sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment.